In the art exhibit at Woods Hall there were two main pieces that caught my attention the most; The Dancing Goat by Fredrich Kerksieck and The War Horse by Laura Shill. These two pieces appeared to the eye as completely different which is why I chose them. I wanted to discover “what art is” by studying two different pieces. As I spent the class time viewing the art pieces I was able to come up with my own ideas of what the two pieces were saying to the viewer.
The Dancing Goat demonstrates a relationship between a girl and boy that everyone experiences at some point in their life. The relationship shown through the artwork is one where a girl likes a boy who is does not have the same feelings back towards the girl and instead has feelings towards someone else. To show this relationship the artist created this piece to have two parts to it. The first main part shows a young boy dancing with a goat. Standing to the side of the two dancing is the cut out of a young girl. The cut out has a glue border and the cut out color is the same color as the second part of this piece. The color in the work is bright colors. They are colors that are considered more girly possibly because the art work deals with a girl’s emotions. The second part contains only the girl who was cut out of the other piece. She has her hands are on her hips and her face is turned towards the direction of the boy and the goat. Having these two different parts of the work the artist is showing how the girl is invisible to the boy and even possibly enters into her own world as she watches the boy dance with the goat and gathers her own opinions about the situation. Having the girl looking at the boy and the goat shows that she is thinking something about them together and when she states, “I just wanted to get closer, but all you ever did was dance with your dancing goat”, shows that she has feelings about the boy and that she feels ignored by him. The girl in this piece also demonstrates her jealousy towards the dancing goat being with the boy. She wishes the boy would turn away from the goat and pay attention to her. In many situations a goat symbolizes a “younger loser”. This symbolism would make sense in this art piece for two reasons. First, the goat is young because the boy and girl shown in this art piece are both kids. Second, the girl is jealous of the goat and feels that the boy is wasting his time with the goat when he should be spending the time with her. The boy is wasting his time with her because she views the goat as a loser. After breaking down this art piece you are able to uncover that the message to this piece is about love rejection. The message was discovered by discovering what different parts of the art work were standing for and putting all of the parts together just like how I discovered The War Horse’s meaning.
The War Horse contains only dark images and colors. There are three main objects in this piece; a horse, wired fence, and black birds flying above in the sky. The horse is a shade of black. On the horse are holes representing bullets holes. The multiple bullet holes show that the horse was in some kind of fight similar to a war because there was a lot of shooting. The horse is then surrounded by a wired fence that is shown behind it in the picture. The fence is trapping the horse in a certain area. The piece also has black birds that look like crows or buzzards flying. The black birds are symbolizing death since those types of black birds fly to dead things. Having these three images in the painting, the painting is trying to communicate about war and death. The message about death and war is that we are surrounded by death just like how the horse is surrounded by the fence. It is something we cannot escape. Another way the picture is communicating to the viewer about death is through the 3D set up. The picture is displayed through four pieces of the picture put together. The pieces are not balanced on the same level. Through this set up the picture is showing how things are unbalanced in life because of different ideas and conflicts that lead us to the dark message showed in the picture.
The two art pieces I chose covered two very different topics but they both use their artwork to allow the viewer to depict an idea to what the piece is trying to say. The Dancing Goat uses a quote to help the viewer fully grasp the message of the work. While The War Horse results to the picture itself to allow the viewer to discover what the piece is saying. The War Horse uses its dark color and symbolism to help the viewer understand its message. The Dancing Goat also uses symbolism but in a way that is not as clear because it could have multiple meanings. Both pieces do use the method of breaking their work into pieces to help give the viewer an idea to their meaning. The form of their artwork meaning it being broken up is another example of the work using symbolism to get off part of the message the artwork is trying to explain. The two pieces also share the similarity of displaying messages of feelings that everyone can relate to. The Dancing Goat’s message is of a relationship between two people when one has stronger feelings than the other and the other is spending more time with someone else that the one with strong feelings thinks is a loser. This relationship can also be described as a love rejection. The War Horse’s message that is trying to be portrayed is one that is of death or even possibly war. Both of the two messages are ones that every person experiences more than once in their lifetimes.
The Dancing Goat and The War Horse both have two different messages that the viewer is able to relate. The messages both speak to their viewers in forms that are obtainable but not obvious. The viewer is able to come up with their own idea of what piece is trying to say after studying the piece. Being able to relate to the two pieces allowed me to enjoy the artwork. I was luckily able to relate more to The Dancing Goat because I experienced a boy who I have liked spending more time with a girl who I am not fond of more than I have of death or war like how I thought of The War Horse. These two pieces both seem very different but are similar after studying just like other pieces in the art show that I did not write about. The art show was one that I enjoyed because each piece was very creative and different from the rest. I would encourage people to attend the art show because each piece was effective in sharing a message.
5 comments:
I think your essay met the requirements exceptionally well; the content effectively described each work of art, compared and contrasted them, and got your opinion out. One thing I think you did best is the way you accurately described each work of art. You mentioned enough of the small details that I could picture each piece if I had never seen them before. Another thing I think you did well is the meanings you came up with that are behind each work of art. You are assertive in the way you present these meanings, letting your reader know exactly what it’s about.
I didn’t find a whole lot in your essay that I think you need to improve on. The biggest problem I noticed is that the flow of your essay made it a little difficult to read in some areas. There were several run on sentences and word choices that I think could be fixed through more revision before turning in your paper. Other than that good job!
I think you did a good job on your essay. You explained in detail very well of the two poeces of art that you chose. I thought you did a good job making it clear to the reader what the art work looked like and what it meant to you. The only thing I thouht that you could change is that you repeated yourself a few times. Overall I thoght this was a good paper, and very interesting.
The first paragraph is a good basic opener but seems a little wordy, “drawing my attention the most,” as well as using some words too many times. The paper seems to be excessively repetitive; you even use the same word three times in one sentence. The second paragraph does not seem to have been proof read in parts there are two first parts to a sentence like you started a thought but never finished. The description of the work itself is a little confusing; I cannot seem to get a clear image. I think maybe you understood what you wanted to say but needed to fill space so made up reasons as to why. Your arguments do not seem very strong or passionate. Explain why features represent other things, the holes in the horse. How does using 3d exert the image of death towards the viewer? Explain how you arrived at these conclusions; your train of thought is unclear. Even though each image could be interpreted in different ways pick your favorite and argue that single one. Make it seem as though that is the only way; where the reader comes away trusting you. Your argument will be strong and in turn make your paper much stronger.
over all i think it was a really good essay. i think you really explained the the two pieces well. you compared and contrasted them really good. i think that at points it was a little to wordy. you mentioned both small and large details about the piece and that was good. Even though there were some run on sentences i think that your essay was pretty much awesome.
Something that I think you need to work on right off is your opening sentence. I think that you would be better off if you started out not by saying what you like or didn’t like about the museum instead you should talk about what the museum was and what it had in it. Or even what your first thoughts about the art museum were. You also in your first paragraph need to work on saying something other than during my class time because it sound like you were forced to go and that is not appealing. You need to improve on your thesis it is not very strong at all and it does not tell me what you are going to talk about in the coming up paragraphs. What I think you did well is that in the second and third paragraph you gave good descriptions on the art that you liked and the art that you did not like at all. Another thing that I you did and I like is that you took the took pieces and compared and contrasted them. Last thing that you need to work on is that you need to restate you thesis statement in your conclusion paragraph.
Jeff Aycock
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